That's funny. It probably wouldn't be legal for him to take it out in public, though. If it's strong enough to pop a balloon then it would definitely harm someone's eye. Eventually batteries will be powerful enough for small lasers like that to put out some serious damage.

Well, I just did a little research on lasers. I could buy a laser pointer with 1W of output, but it's $138 and overkill. In fact, the quality high-powered laser pointers are all relatively expensive compared to the <5mW pointers.

I have a laptop here who's motherboard died. I just pulled out the DVD burner and it says it's a class 3B laser. I could eventually make my own laser device, although I may need something called a laser driver. It would still be cheaper and more fun to improvise my own some day instead of buying one of the expensive ones. I already know about circuits and how to solder. I'd still have to do a lot more research on how to remove and reinstall this laser properly since it's so small.

Well, I took it apart and these certainly are not typical laser diodes. Panasonic calls them hologram units, which seem to be more complicated. They have the data sheet for the CD burner hologram unit, but there isn't one for the DVD burner hologram unit. I'll have to find one elsewhere to experiment with lasers. Just my luck.